VATICAN CITY (RNS) “Obedience and closed environments also seem to have had a role in the prevalence of abuse within some religious orders and dioceses,” the report said. “Obligatory celibacy may also have contributed to abuse.”

NEW YORK (RNS) Groeschel was an outspoken opponent of abortion and was quick to defend the church against what he saw as unfair criticism. But his critique of media coverage of the clergy sex abuse scandals also landed him in hot water.

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Poland’s ambassador to the Holy See has forcefully condemned the alleged sexual abuse of children by a Polish-born former archbishop and Vatican diplomat, and said Warsaw is considering a fresh request to extradite Jozef Wesolowski to face trial in his homeland.

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, 65, is the highest-ranking church official to be found guilty of sex abuse and has two months to appeal his sentence before facing criminal proceedings at the Vatican.

ST. LOUIS (RNS) Any celebrating of the anniversary on the part of Archbishop Robert J. Carlson was done in the midst of nationwide headlines about his connection to the sexual abuse scandal that has rocked the Roman Catholic Church for more than a decade.

(RNS) Some victims of clergy sex abuse say Pope Francis’ first-ever encounter with victims is simply stagecraft aimed at distracting the public from what they say are the pope’s larger failures to address the abuse crisis.

ROME (RNS) The panel’s criticism was far more muted than a scathing February report from the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child that asserted that the Vatican had fostered “impunity” for abusers.

VATICAN CITY (RNS) “Any serious look around the world at what the Holy See is doing and what local churches are doing shows clearly that there is no climate of impunity but a total commitment to clean house,” Archbishop Silvano Tomasi said.

VATICAN CITY (RNS) The Vatican’s new commission for the protection of minors, led by Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley, is designed to show the pope’s personal commitment to confront the sex scandals that have shaken the church around the world.

VATICAN CITY (RNS) At issue is whether the church’s handling of the sexual abuse scandal violates international norms against subjecting minors to torture, something that the Vatican’s chief spokesman denied on Tuesday.